Account

Company

  Menu
Large Image

Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive

by

(709 reviews)

Get It Preview
$9.99 $10.99 Save 9%

Share This

Description

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD***A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021***A SCIENCE NEWS FAVORITE BOOK OF 2021***A SMITHSONIAN TOP TEN SCIENCE BOOK OF 2021

"Stories that both dazzle and edify... This book is not just about life, but about discovery itself." -- Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times Book Review

We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world -- from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses -- the harder they find it is to locate life's edge.

Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can't answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts -- whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead.

Life's Edge is an utterly fascinating investigation that no one but one of the most celebrated science writers of our generation could craft. Zimmer journeys through the strange experiments that have attempted to re-create life. Literally hundreds of definitions of what that should look like now exist, but none has yet emerged as an obvious winner. Lists of what living things have in common do not add up to a theory of life. It's never clear why some items on the list are essential and others not. Coronaviruses have altered the course of history, and yet many scientists maintain they are not alive. Chemists are creating droplets that can swarm, sense their environment, and multiply. Have they made life in the lab?

Whether he is handling pythons in Alabama or searching for hibernating bats in the Adirondacks, Zimmer revels in astounding examples of life at its most bizarre. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results. Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and how the world briefly believed radium was the source of all life, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers engineering life from scratch.

Tag This Book

This Book Has Been Tagged
It hasn't. Be the first to tag this book!

Our Recommendation

Track It. This book has been $1.99 within the past year.

Notify Me When The Price...

  • If I'm already tracking this book

to track this book on eReaderIQ.

Track These Authors

to track Carl Zimmer on eReaderIQ.

  • to be notified each time the price drops on any book by Carl Zimmer.
  • to stop tracking Carl Zimmer.

Price Summary

  • We started tracking this book on January 7, 2021.
  • This book was $15.99 when we started tracking it.
  • The price of this book has changed 61 times in the past 1,503 days.
  • The current price of this book is $9.99 last checked one day ago.
  • This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $1.99.
  • The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on December 9, 2024.
  • This book has been $1.99 one time since we started tracking it.
  • The highest price to date was $15.99 last reached on January 23, 2022.
  • This book has been $15.99 3 times since we started tracking it.

Genres

Additional Info

  • Text-to-Speech: Disabled
  • Lending: Disabled
  • Print Length: 369 Pages
  • File Size: 4,289 KB

We last verified the price of this book about one day ago. At that time, the price was $9.99. This price is subject to change. The price displayed on the Amazon.com website at the time of purchase is the price you will pay for this book. Please confirm the price before making any purchases.